Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City and Shawnee Mission Health Announce Physicians for New Spira Care Centers

KANSAS CITY, MO. (December 4, 2017)  Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City (Blue KC) and Shawnee Mission Health (SMH) announced the physicians who will lead bringing the Spira Care Centers’ patient experience to life starting in January of 2018. This follows the companies’ recent announcement of Spira Care, an innovative primary care and insurance offering that takes place at convenient locations with no deductibles, no copays and no additional cost for any procedures performed at the Care Centers.*

Lauren Bessey, DO, and Jason Bessey, DO, both Family Medicine and Primary Care physicians, join the Spira Care team bringing more than 20 years of family medicine expertise to the Care Centers. They will lead a dedicated Care Team that will deliver high-quality, patient-focused and personalized care to eligible Blue KC members.

“We are delighted to be working with Dr. Jason Bessey and Dr. Lauren Bessey in this effort to change the way primary care is delivered,” said Greg Sweat, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Blue KC. “As Spira Care physicians, they share our ambition to get back to the roots of the primary care experience, and provide care that is personal and intuitive.”

Dr. Lauren Bessey and Dr. Jason Bessey join Spira Care from Shawnee Mission Primary Care – Blue Valley, under the SMH umbrella, where they have been full-time family practice physicians for the past two years, after recently returning to the area from Tucson, Ariz. The married couple are both Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences graduates with backgrounds in family medicine including outpatient, inpatient, newborn nursery, emergency room care, intensive care, nursing home care and extensive clinic work.

“Primary care has always taken a holistic approach to care that’s rooted in the doctor-patient relationship,” said Lauren Bessey, DO. “Spira Care puts the patient at the center of the healthcare experience and surrounds them with a Care Team that’s equipped with the time and resources necessary to provide the best care possible.”

A cornerstone of Spira Care is the relationship with SMH, which will help streamline administration for physicians. This approach allows the Spira Care Team more time to devote to helping patients manage their long-term health goals. It’s also designed to create savings for employers by combining advanced primary care with the high-performance BlueSelect Plus network.

“The collaboration we see with Spira Care will drive better experiences and outcomes for patients and providers,” said Jason Bessey, DO. “With Spira Care, Blue KC and Shawnee Mission Health have taken a step towards the future of care delivery for the KC community.”

Spira Care was developed following months of hands-on collaboration with members and patients to design a health plan and place that’s easy to understand and use. The two Spira Care Centers are located in Olathe, Kansas (135th Street and Black Bob) and Shawnee, Kansas (Shawnee Mission Parkway, east of Nieman). The Olathe location will open on January 2, 2018, and the Shawnee location will open in April of 2018. Visit SpiraCare.com to learn more.

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, the largest not-for-profit health insurer in Missouri and the only not-for-profit commercial health insurer in Kansas City, has been part of the Kansas City community since 1938. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City provides health coverage services to more than one million residents in the greater Kansas City area, including Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas and 30 counties in Northwest Missouri. Our mission: to use our role as the area's leading health insurer to provide affordable access to health care and to improve the health of our members. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more information on the company, visit its website at BlueKC.com.

About Shawnee Mission Health
Shawnee Mission Health (SMH) includes Shawnee Mission Medical Center (SMMC) in Merriam, Kan., a 504-bed facility with more than 22,000 inpatient admissions and more than 200,000 outpatient admissions annually; SMH – Prairie Star; SMH – Overland Park and Centra Care Shawnee Mission Urgent Care and physician practices located throughout Johnson and Leavenworth Counties. SMH is the only certified member of MD Anderson Cancer Network®, a program of MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Kansas City, and SMMC is the only Kansas City area hospital to earn a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. SMH employs more than 3,200 local residents and supports an exceptional staff of nearly 700 physicians. SMH is part of Adventist Health System (AHS), the largest not-for-profit, Protestant health care organization in the nation. Visit us online at ShawneeMission.org.

*Services received outside of the Care Center from providers in the BlueSelect Plus network will be subject to the plan deductible. After the deductible is met, services received from BlueSelect Plus providers are covered at 100 percent. Members will also have the nationwide coverage of the BlueCard network outside the 32-county Blue KC service area. Non-emergency services received from non-network providers will not be covered under the plan. Some prescriptions will be offered on-site at each member’s regular copay level.